Globalization and global governance

Abstract

The appearance of the term ‘governance’ coincides with the so-called era of globalization. The association of governance with globalization is twofold: first, governing is increasingly the domain of non-state organizations (whether multilateral institutions or non-governmental or corporate organizations); and second, governance is a euphemism for private power (exercised through the market). Indeed, globalization has become, discursively, a form of governing itself. The historical context for this extended meaning of governance is the deterritorialization of space, through the deepening of market relations. This is accomplished along three related dimensions: (1) the extension of commodity circuits, from seeds to services; (2) the centralization of capital in transnational corporate organizations (whether firms or strategic alliances among firms); and (3) the privatization of public institutions, associated with the neoliberal prescription for expanding markets and shrinking states. In this scenario, globalization is understood as the reduction of market friction (i.e. state interference), in order to realize the efficiency of market-based resource allocation. And governance is understood, primarily, as the management of market relations across the whole gamut of social and environmental arenas (from health care, through financial services to pollution permits).